20th-century classical music describes orchestral works, chamber music, solo instrumental works (including keyboard music), electronic music, choral music, songs, operas, ballets, concertos, symphonies, and related forms, as well as fantasies, rhapsodies, fugues, passacaglias and chaconnes, variations, oratorios, cantatas, suites, improvisational and newly developed formal concepts such as variable and mobile forms, that have been written and performed since 1900. This era was without a dominant style and composers have created highly diverse kinds of music. Modernism, impressionism, post-romanticism, neoclassicism, expressionism, and, later, minimalism were all important movements. Atonality, serialism, musique concrète and electronic music were all developed during this period. Jazz was an important influence on many composers in this period.

Listening Ex. 1 - Stravinsky: "The Right of Spring"
Listening Ex. 2 - Walton: ​"Belshazzar's Feast"
Listening Ex. 3 - Bartok: ​"Allegro Barbaro"
Listening Ex. 4 - Schoenberg: "Five Pieces for Orchestra"
Listening Ex. 5 - Britten: ​"Peter Grimes"
Listening Ex. 6 - Varies: ​"Ionization"
Listening Ex. 7 - Stockhausen: ​"Kontakte"
Listening Ex. 8 - Penderecki: ​"Threnody..."

​Listening Ex. 9 - Debussy: "Preclude: Voiles"
Listening Ex. 10 - Debussy: "L'Apre's-midi d'un Faune"
Listening Ex. 11 - Copland: "Hoedown"
Listening Ex. 12 - Bartok: "Dance Suite"
Listening Ex. 13 - Gershwin: "An American In Paris"
Listening Ex. 14 - Ravel: "Bolero"
Listening Ex. 15 - Ives: "Putnam's Camp"
Listening Ex. 16 - Berg: ​"Three Pieces For Orchestra"
Listening Ex. 17 - Webern: "Five Pieces For Orchestra"
Listening Ex. 18 - Schoenberg: "Variations For Orchestra"
Listening Ex. 19 - Berg: "Violin Concerto"
Listening Ex. 20 - Webern: "Symphony Op. 21"
Listening Ex. 22 - Stravinsky: "Pulcinella"
Listening Ex. 23 - Prokofiev: "Classical Symphony"
Listening Ex. 24 - Messiaen: ​"Catalogue d'Oiseaux"
Listening Ex. 25 - Cage: ​"Sonata II for Prepared Piano"
Listening Ex. 26 - Schaeffer: ​"Music Concrete"
Listening Ex. 27 -Stockhausen: ​"Telemusik"
Listening Ex. 28 - Boulez: "Structures I"
Listening Ex. 29 - Cage: "Imaginary Landscapes"
Listening Ex. 30 - Cage:  4'33''
Listening Ex. 31 - Stockhausen: ​"Aus den Sieben Tagen"

20th Century Listening Practice

Listening Example